Monday, August 25, 2008

MetroNation Chennai

I am pretty excited to learn that NDTV will be launching English TV channel in Chennai soon. I have always been an admirer of NDTV's professionalism right from the 1990s of The World This Week masterfully hosted by Mr. Prannoy Roy and his election special analysis. It is interesting to learn that they are entering into joint venture with a venerable media institution in South India, The Hindu. Hope their synergy works magic and be an antidote to daily droll aired by umpteen number of regional channels.

I am reproducing below the report:

After launching MetroNation in Delhi last September, NDTV Group plans to launch the city-specific channel in Chennai by October-end.

Prannoy Roy-promoted NDTV Ltd is floating a joint venture company with The Hindu Group to launch a Chennai city-centric channel.

NDTV will hold 51 per cent in the JV while the Hindu Group will have the balance 49 per cent. The JV will launch MetroNation Chennai, marking Hindu's foray into television news broadcasting.

"We are setting up a joint venture company with The Hindu Group where we will hold 51 per cent. Hindu is a reputed brand at the regional and national level. It was a natural gravitation towards each other," NDTV Group CEO KVL Narayan Rao tells Indiantelevision.com.The relationship will also extend to content-sharing with the most popular English newspaper in Tamil Nadu. "We aim to launch MetroNation Chennai in the next 3-4 months," Rao says.

Hey, Krishnan, good to know. The Times of India just launched their Chennai edition and they are announcing it through that amusing ad (hope you have seen it on CNN IBN). All our cities are growing (hope infrastructure and standards of living keep pace).